Month: January 2024

KAWAHARA Shoichiro
Senior researcher
International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

Japanese https://i-rich.org/?p=1803

1. The result of the 2024 Taiwanese Presidential election

In the 2024 Taiwanese Presidential election, candidate Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won with a turnout rate of about 40%. The election was fought among three candidates, Lai, Hou Yu-ih of the leading opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) and Ko Wen-je of the second opposition Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Although candidate Lai reportedly held a marginal lead, it was a very close race to the end. At the result of this election, European and American countries belonging to the democratic bloc felt relieved. However, in the legislative election held simultaneously, the DPP could not win the majority seats, which will be a reason for concern about the Taiwanese government from now on.

The biggest issue in the election was how to deal with Communist China. In this regard, candidate Lai Ching-te continued the political line held by the current Tsai Ing-wen administration, keeping a certain distance from Communist China and never succumbing to China’s pressure.

Against this, the Nationalist Party candidate Hou Yu-ih basically holds the reconciliatory line with the Chinese Communist Party and emphasizes promotion of economic relationships through talks between China and Taiwan.

And candidate Ko Wen-je stood in-between the two candidates and claimed to act as a bridge between Chian and Taiwan.

As the election campaigns moved on among the three candidates, Communist China did everything to establish a China-friendly government in Taiwan, meddling in the election so that pro-China Hou Yu-ih might get majority votes. China’s actions included military pressure, trade restriction, media interference, dissemination of fake news, inviting influential Taiwanese to China, offering economic incentives to Taiwanese businesses, inviting Taiwanese youths to study in China and many others.

Why, then, is Communist China so entirely intent on establishing a pro-China government in Taiwan? That is because these attempts directly lead to China’s scenario of unified Taiwan. Now, let us look at it closely.

2. Communist China’s scenario of peaceful unification of Taiwan

There are two scenarios of the unification of Taiwan by Communist China, peaceful and military. Popularly discussed is the military scenario, but it is the last resort, so to speak, and the peaceful unification should be the first consideration.

In Communist China’s plan of peaceful unification of Taiwan, it was early in the 2000s that Communist China came up with the idea of using the opponent Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) when the Kuomintang left the government for the first time. At that time, the Nationalist Party was totally shocked and despondent after losing the ruling power and Communist China used this opportunity to lend a helping hand to the Party in distress. This attempt culminated in the summit meeting between Lien Chan, the Chairman of the Kuomintang and the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao on April 29, 2005. The meeting was called the third collaboration of the Nationalist and Communist parties. At the meeting five common recognitions (hereinafter, “Five Great Wishes”) were announced. The Five Great Wishes exactly manifest the scenario of the peaceful unification of Communist China and Taiwan. They are 1) to resume talks between both sides of the strait, 2) to have regular exchanges between the two Parties, 3) to discuss the way how Taiwan should engage in international activities, 4) to establish an overall economic and trade cooperation across the strait, and 5) to conclude the peace pact across the strait.

Kuomintang Ma Ying-jeou, who returned to power in 2005, faithfully carried out the Five Great Wishes. However, regarding the economic and trade cooperation, although the economic operation framework agreement was concluded in 2010 and a wide range of free activities was realized, the approval of the service-trade pact failed due to an opposition movement initiated by students (Sunflower Students’ Movement), so, the pact remained ineffective. In 2011, a plan of cross-strait peace treaty was brought up, but it was too premature; it was met with strong opposition within Taiwan and had to be promptly withdrawn. Later, in the Tsai Ing-wen administration, both the service-trade pact and the cross-strait peace treaty were shelved and remain unattended to this day.

Communist China aims to establish a pro-China Government by putting service-trade pact into effect and promoting control over the media, publishing, finance, and insurance in Taiwan. Candidates Ko Wen-je and Hou Yu-ih asserted their willingness to put this service-trade pact into effect early in their election campaigns, which shows that both candidates were working for Communist China.

Then, after imposing control over free speech in Taiwan, China aims to imbue the Taiwanese mind with the idea of “one country, two systems.” In view of Communist China, Taiwanese people’s repulsion for “one-country, two systems” is a major factor of preventing the unification of Taiwan and so, China tries to remove the factor. By reducing the Taiwanese people’s repulsion as much as possible, they will conclude the cross-strait peace agreement in a peaceful manner.

As a matter of fact, in order to reach the conclusion of the cross-strait peace pact, many unpredictable and complicated situations may occur, but the main scenario would be as mentioned above. In either case, without a pro-China government, it would be impossible to realize such scenario. The election this time turned out to be unsuccessful in realizing the scenario and Communist China’s plot has failed.

3. Armed unification and Taiwan’s statehood

The remaining scenario for Communist China to follow is military unification or armed integration. In this respect, how to deal with Taiwan’s statehood becomes a very important issue, and it will decide the success or failure of the entire scenario. It is an issue whether foreign countries interfering in the use of force against Taiwan is permissible or not in terms of international law.

Communist China does not recognize Taiwan as a State and states that Communist China’s use of force against Taiwan is a domestic matter within a State. The Government of Taiwan is merely a revolting group within the country and using armed force against the group is a domestic matter which other countries should not interfere in.

Against this assertion, the Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party maintains that Taiwan is fully eligible for statehood and circumstantially a divided state. The two cross-strait realities are that the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China in mainland respectively and parallelly exist as divided states and that Communist China should recognize the reality. Accordingly, Communist China’s use of armed force against Taiwan is equivalent to “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State,” as stipulated to refrain from in Article 2-4 of the Charter of the United Nations. And it cannot be helped if such act should be interfered in by other countries.

However, another Taiwanese political party, the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) holds a different view. The Kuomintang has been holding the traditional party policy of “China is one” ever since Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership. The party ceased to emphasize the view but has not abandoned the view that Taiwan is part of the Chinese State, including the mainland.

As for the People’s Party, they have remained silent regarding the view of statehood and have not clarified their position.

We should be aware that views of statehood vary withing Taiwan. And yet, through democratic practices over the past thirty years, the great majority of Taiwanese realize that they live their daily life in a practically independent country and only a very few Taiwanese think that Taiwan is a part of the Chinese State.

It should be confirmed under the international law that Taiwan is a genuine independent state. The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States sets out the four criteria for statehood that the state as a person of international law should possess: (a) a permanent population; (b)a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Taiwan unquestionably satisfies all these qualifications. In addition, no country in the world fails to recognize the continuous activities carried out by Taiwan as an independent state for the past thirty years. It is an indisputable fact that Taiwan is factually an independent state while Communist China is busy employing sophistry. To treat Taiwan as a true state enhances the international status of Taiwan and contributes to its security.

4. The Taiwanese Strait and the East Asia in future

In, the recent presidential election, Lai Ching-te won, pledged to succeed the Tsai Ing-wen political line, which has lessened the fear lest the Taiwanese Strait situation should rapidly become unstable. Still, the military pressure against Taiwan by China will be further strengthened and cross-strait tension will further intensify.

On the other hand, as confrontation between the United States and China in the East Asia, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, further accelerates, in terms of defense strategy, the value of Taiwan, a democratic state in the East Asia, is getting higher than ever. Therefore, it is unthinkable for the United States not to interfere in the use of force by China against Taiwan. Taiwan is the pivot of the current East Asian policy of the United States leading the democratic bloc. In this sense, to abandon Taiwan means collapse and defeat of the U.S. Asian policy.

Under such circumstances, it was good news for the democratic bloc that the favorable result of the recent Taiwanese Presidential election prevented Communist China’s scenario of peaceful unification of Taiwan and China. However, I must repeat once again that in the legislative election, the Party could not secure the majority seats. This will bring many difficulties in running the Government. The outlook for the Lai Ching-te Government is far from optimistic. 

YANO Yoshiaki
Senior researcher
International Research Institute for Controversial Histories

Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=1763

Conflicts in the Middle East are raging once again. The war between Hamas and Israel is escalating. The historical background and its misinterpretation by the Great Powers concerned have caused complicated consequences.

During the Islamic Ottoman dynasty, in the present-day Israel, Jews and Christians lived in peaceful harmony under the Islamic rule.

However, at the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement started, and groups of Jews started entering Palestine to settle in “God’s promised land.” But the Ottoman Empire did not particularly regulate their settlement.

After World War I, as the Ottoman Empire was in the process of dissolving, the Middle East region was divided into areas under the rule of several Western Great Powers. The United Kingdom, one of the belligerent powers of the War, concluded the Hussein-McMahon agreement in 1915, while the war was still going on, and promised the independence of the region where Arabs resided in exchange for the cooperation of the Arabic States in the war against the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

On the other hand, in May 1916, the United Kingdom made a secret agreement with its allies France and Russia, regarding the control over the Ottoman Empire after the War.

Moreover, in November 1917, the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging its agreement and support for the establishment in Palestine of a “National Home” for the Jewish people.

This triple-tongued diplomacy on the part of the United Kingdom, which made pledges that contradicted one another, is said to have been the fundamental factor creating the present-day Palestinian issue.

However, the Arab State designated in the Hussein-McMahon agreement did not include Palestine and some say that the two agreements did not contradict each other.

The Balfour Declaration clearly safeguarded the rights of Palestine’s indigenous non-Jewish residents while establishing a “National Home” for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Based on the Balfour Declaration, in 1922, the League of Nations adopted the resolution of the British Mandate for Palestine. At that time, the residents in Palestine were mostly Arabs and even under the mandatory rule, in view of the right of people’s self-determination, Arabs’ sovereignty should have been respected.

However, as the Zionist movement rose further, more and more Jews came to buy land and settle in Palestine and the conflicts between the Arab Palestinian residents and the Jewish settlement and Jewish settlers became more frequent.

The confrontation between the two peoples under the mandate turned into conflicts between States after the United Nations’ resolution to divide Palestine after World War II.

In the background of this resolution lay the massacre of Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. Before and during the War, many Jewish refugees headed for Palestine and the movement to support the establishment of a state for homeless Jews in Palestine became widespread among the Allied Nations.

Decisively important was the lobbying by Jewish American residents in the Congress of the United States of America, the most powerful victor of the War. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution recommending the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the partition of Palestine to create two independent Arab and Jewish states, and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem.

It turned out that the United Nations resolution allowed a different people to establish a respective new State in another’s land, almost equivalent to allowing invaders to conquer the land, which is against international law. This is exactly what became the root of the current conflicts in the Middle East.

In fact, on the next day after the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, the surrounding Arab States, not recognizing the Israeli independence, started military attacks against Israel. This was the first Middle East War. Israel won the war and after ceasefire through the United Nations mediation consolidated its status as an independent State and came to occupy a larger portion of the land than initially allocated in the Partition Resolution by the United Nations.

While Israel occupied the Palestinian region, more than 700,000 Palestinian people became refugees, which created the current Palestinian refugee issue.

After that, Middle East Wars between Israel and the surrounding Arab States took place three more times, and each time Israel won, expanding its territory further.

On the part of Palestine, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964, asserting its goal of Palestinian self-determination, but in the Lebanese civil war in 1982, the PLO was ousted from Lebanon and its influence gradually diminished. In 1988, after deciding to establish a Palestinian State in the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip, co-existing with Israel, the PLO adopted the Palestine Declaration of Independence.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords were signed, according to which the Government of Israel and the PLO recognized each other and an interim Palestine autonomy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was established. The PLO promised to abandon its armed struggle, but the newly established Hamas, acting as a destroyer of peace, launched suicidal terrorist bombings, aggravating the domestic conflicts with the interim government.

Hamas won the Palestine legislative election in 2006 and after the Battle for Gaza in 2007 became the governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is an organization that follows the principles of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian nationalism.

During the Syrian civil war, attempting to oust the Asad Government, Hamas fought against Hizballah, supported by the United States and Israel. Hizballah is a Shia Islam militia, based in southern Lebanon, supported by Iran.

In recent years, however, Hamas has been concentrating on armed struggle against Israel, promoting the strategic cooperation with Hizballah, and receiving support in terms of weapons and training.

The current conflict with Israel, triggered by the unexpected attack by Hamas, opened a new battle front in connection with the ongoing war in Ukraine, which benefits strategically Russia and China, although they are not directly involved in the conflict. Some commentators even think that support for Hamas came from Russia and China.

Another assumption based on the conflict is that Israel and the United States may launch a preemptive strike against Iran, which is reportedly close to obtaining enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon.

On the other hand, the Biden Administration released $ 6 billon-worth of the frozen Iranian assets. It cannot be denied that part of that money went to Hamas through Hizballah.

It is not clear, either, why the Biden Administration released as much as $ 6 billion of frozen Iranian assets, or whether weapons left deserted in Afghanistan or part of the weapons to be sent to Ukraine found its way into the hands of Hamas.

Some speculate that since Russia seems to be winning in the Ukraine War despite the past expectations, the U.S. Jewish international financial capital is trying to make profit by waging a new war in the Middle East.

Thus, the historical background leading to the outbreak of the war in the Middle East this time and the misunderstanding by the Superpowers of the realities inside and outside the region are so complicated that it is not at all a simple question of which one is ally or foe or which one is right or wrong.

It is urgent for each country to correctly analyze the situation and make the utmost effort to secure its national interest and particularly national security, without being swallowed up in the violent current of these bizarre and complicated international circumstances.

The region surrounding Japan is as militarily tense as Ukraine and the Middle East. Japan must have its own independent national security policy and carry out informational activities.

Particularly, Japan depends on the Middle East for more than 90% of its crude oil import. If the safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz should be threatened, Japan would be directly hit. Japan has 240 days’ oil stockpile maintained by the state and private companies. If the conflict should linger on, the Japanese economy would be hard hit. Japan should strengthen its energy security and particularly, restart its nuclear power facilities soon enough.

The conflict may suddenly spread and it is urgent to secure the safety of the Japanese residents and companies in the region and to have them safely and promptly return home to Japan. Reexamining the five principles to participate in the U.N. Peace Keeping Operations (PKO), the Japan Self Defense Forces should be authorized to use the necessary weapons in carrying out their missions in the conflict regions.

The biggest threat is China’s advance to the Senkaku Islands and Taiwan, using the void of power in the Northeast Asia. The state control of the Chinese economy tightens further and the dictatorship of Xi Jinping is further consolidated after consecutive ousting of high government officials and it appears that there are signs of progressing preparations for war, including efforts to enhance the nuclear forces and stockpile more nuclear weapons. Japan should speedily enhance its defense force, prepare for a possible attack on the Senkaku Islands and strengthen its own nuclear deterrent power.